The Next Next / Update #6
Hey everyone!
Another action-packed week.
Pod progress:
I have a draft trailer ready to go (see below). May add music. Should I? Any tips on how to select the right track? What service to use? If you have any feedback on the pod concept, let me know! (I am using Riverside for recording and Descript for editing, fwiw).
I also confirmed the first several guests, and start recording next week. It is a mix so far of founders who built monster companies without a dime of outside capital, investors who have been investing in AI since before it was cool, and founders building with AI and building products that depend on it, as well as a long tail of other people with interesting/relevant perspectives. Definitely interested in learning from more people on the show (duh!), so if you have suggestions, the best profiles for now would be founders neck deep in using these tools and/or making them for others to use. As a reminder, the initial focus of the show is on exploring 1) how to build different in a way that includes great ambition without compromising family, fitness etc. and 2) how emerging AI tools can help.
Netflix-like series idea:
I also stumbled across a fun idea for a show I wish existed. Talking to all these seasoned (i.e. older) founders who want to build different has been informative, but also hilarious. They have just as many problems as young founders, but very different kinds of problems. I feel like the show Silicon Valley focused on young founders. Someone should make a version focused on older founders like me and my peers. We could call it…. Fogey Founders. Even better if it could be made using AI (like Suno Music, but for video production, using natural text as the prompts for show creation), but I don’t think the tech is there yet. I know this because I spent many hours this week getting to know some of the existing tools and getting my hands dirty with them (tried Midjourney, Sora, D-iD, Wispr’s Flow, and Jars.ai, to name a few. While I don’t think AI can build this kind of show today, it’s been a good excuse to get my hands dirty with these tools for a different use case, so it is a win either way.
If anyone is fired up about this show idea and wants to help experiment with it, let me know. We could even use tiktok to flesh out individual characters and get them followings as a POC before proceeding with any heavier lifting.
And if anyone is fired up about (or working on) building the Suno Music of video content production, let me know that too! Feels early, but like Wayne Gretzky says, skate to where the puck is going.
Is prompting the new coding?
I have also been thinking about how important prompting is in this new era. And also how non-intuitive it can be for many. I am wondering if there should be prompting academies the way there have been coding academies in the Internet era. I registered this domain just in case (its a play on School of Rock).
I’d love to chat with anyone thinking about the future of prompting, how the underlying data needs to be structured different to take advantage of these emerging tools, and what opportunities and threats may come about as a result of these emerging technologies. Not to mention anyone who is excited about the idea of pulling together a prompting academy!
Here are a few good reads from this week that got me thinking:
Reforge’s acquisition of Montery and the rationale
Jared Hecht’s thoughs on what it means to be AI-Native
a16z pod on how AI is turning capital into labor
Asks for this week:
pod guest suggestions (people neck deep in using AI to build and/or incorporating it into their offerings)
people with netflix-style show creation experience, tiktok character development experience, or fogey founders with funny stories/perspectives to share
people working on or excited to work on a platform to use natural language prompts to create longform video content
people thinking deeply about where all of this is going that would be helpful sounding boards
people with experience with online course and/or learning platform creation
I am loving all of this learning, and while definitely scattered in these early innings, I do feel like the ball is moving meaningfully forward each week. I am already feeling a tension between learning from people and learning from getting my hands dirty with the tools. Both could easily be full-time jobs.
As always, reach out if you have feedback, ideas, or just want to catch up. And of course, let me know as we go if I end up delving into any areas relevant/useful to you, or you would like me to.
Until next week!
Jason